Jupiter has been sitting pretty for too fucking long.

No problem.

I think an important conclusion to the argument is: whatever you believe in, learn what a good person is and then be that person.

Have a good day.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP_iNCGH9kY

It is mostly a satirical video, yet they make some valid and documented points. Sources are in the description. This is the most elegant source I can offer without having to spend time looking over all the historical essays I have read in the past years.

If you find this video trite or simply wish not to engage in a discussion without my providing higher-tier sources, I'll go over aforementioned texts and report back to you.

Enjoy the video and have a nice day.

No problem.

I think an important conclusion to the argument is: whatever you believe in, learn what a good person is and then be that person.

Have a good day.

We don't really know Chris Harper-Mercers' motivations behind killing those people, but we can take a pretty good guess. My guess is that he wasn't motivated by a hatred of religion or the religious.
Firstly, he wasn't an Atheist. He described himself in an online dating profile as "not religious but, 'spiritual' "
It should also be noted that although he only fatally shot those who revealed they were religious (as far as I know he didn't target a certain religion) he did wound those who weren't, by shooting them in the leg or foot. He also reportedly said that he would "be joining you soon" before he committed suicide, which would suggest he believed in some kind of afterlife. Coupled with the fact that he only wounded those who did not believe in an afterlife, it would seem to me that he killed them not out of hatred but because he thought 'if I kill these people they'll go to heaven with me, and so I won't kill the non believers, that would be cruel, I'll injure them though so that the level of bloodshed is as high as possible'.

Why do I think he'd want to spill as much blood as possible? Well he is also quoted as writing online in reference to Vestor L Flanagan, the news reporter who shot his two colleagues and posted the video online.

"On an interesting note, I have noticed that so many people like him are all alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are. A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone. His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems the more people you kill, the more you're in the limelight."

Looking at his online presence and his general demeanour it's safe enough to assume that he was probably a bit of a loner and probably didn't have many friends. He was probably starved of attention and he had discovered a quick and easy way of going down in history. this phenomenon, when someone acquires fame through destructive means, is known as herostratic fame.

To put the final nail in the coffin, he revered a Catholic terrorist group called the I.R.A (Irish Republican Brotherhood). the members of which group were, and still are to some extent, involved in a religious guerrilla war between catholics and protestants in Northern Ireland.

If anything it sounds as if this man used religion as a convenient way to justify killing. Any way you slice it, it certainly isn't as cut and dry as the Charlie Hebdo killings, which were undoubtedly motivated by religious doctrine.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11906041/Chris-Harper-Mercer-Everything-we-know-about-the-Oregon-school-gunman-on-Saturday.html

I refreshed my memory on the details of this case using this article.

Hitler was a Christian. It is not disputed at all.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP_iNCGH9kY

It is mostly a satirical video, yet they make some valid and documented points. Sources are in the description. This is the most elegant source I can offer without having to spend time looking over all the historical essays I have read in the past years.

If you find this video trite or simply wish not to engage in a discussion without my providing higher-tier sources, I'll go over aforementioned texts and report back to you.

Enjoy the video and have a nice day.

No problem.

I think an important conclusion to the argument is: whatever you believe in, learn what a good person is and then be that person.

Have a good day.

(2/2)

>But more commonly, extremist christians (or insert whatever religion here) are fine with and routinely lobby for laws that impose their religious beliefs on others. You don't see atheists doing that. The laws that atheists lobby for are to KEEP theists from doing that.

And why wouldn't they be?
In their eyes they are doing their communities a favor by keeping their religious morals up.
It is after all a free country so they are allowed to do that.
Are they right in doing so?
No, not at all.
As a matter of fact due to the sensitivities of many religious people, scientific achievements have been hindered, but who is to pay the price to those faults? The same religious people that passed those laws for they will be remembered as those who hindered scientific progress.
Like I said, I don't really care for either or. It's all bants to me.

Sources:
Alan Bullock; Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives
Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography
Laurence Rees; The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler
Alan Bullock; Hitler: a Study in Tyranny
The Party of Unbelief
The Religious Policy of The Bolshevik Party
Protest for Religious Rights in the USSR: Characteristics and Consequences
David Kowalewski
David Silbey. The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China.
books.google.com/books?id=iWxKQejMtlMC&dq=Preston+Boxer&source=gbs_navlinks_s&hl=en__
www.nydailynews.com/news/national/christopher-harper-mercer-planned-kill-witness-article-1.2384171
www.thearda.com/internationalData/countries/Country_123_2.asp

And Militant Muslims blow up buildings and terrorize their own countries and governments.
Buddhism is a very peaceful Philosophy but that didn't stop Mao Zedong from killing Millions of his own people.
The Hindus have a rich history of their Emperors and Sultans bloodily waging war against one another for religious reasons as well.
Greco-Roman Religions have done similar stuff as well.
Along with Aztec.
Along with Egyptian.
And Mesopotamian.
And Abrahamic.
Even traditional African beliefs have lead people to do bloody war.

>"militant atheist" means you talk about it on the internet aggressively

So I guess the Chris Harper-Mercer Shooting where he asked his fellow students if they were religious before deciding whether to fatally shoot them or not wasn't Militant Atheism? Or is this to you just an "outlier"?

And if we go back to our Mao Zedong example, he was an Atheist but he followed Buddhist teachings, yet he purposely targeted Christians and others of Abrahamic religions as a way to combat Western Influence.
And less than 60 Years before Zedong's upheaval, The Boxer Rebellion under the Qing dynasty where they massacred Christians.
And still 50 years before that during the Taiping Rebellion.
and this is only in China.

Adolf Hitler, though his religious beliefs are still disputed, described the spread of religion like a disease.
what about Joseph Stalin? His government spread Anti-religious propaganda, he passed laws favoring those who were not religious and during his time as dictator thousands of priests, nuns, clerics were murdered. Thousand of mosques, churches, synagogues, churches, religious artifacts and temples were destroyed.

What I'm trying to say is if you're going to compare the Ugandans who have been through countless coups and years of War to 15 Year Old Children who are upset their parents made them go to Sunday school (This is an exaggeration) , then why not compare the "evils" of The Westboro Baptist Church to the reign of Kim Jong Un who still sends Religious people to concentration camps? (1/2)

We don't really know Chris Harper-Mercers' motivations behind killing those people, but we can take a pretty good guess. My guess is that he wasn't motivated by a hatred of religion or the religious.
Firstly, he wasn't an Atheist. He described himself in an online dating profile as "not religious but, 'spiritual' "
It should also be noted that although he only fatally shot those who revealed they were religious (as far as I know he didn't target a certain religion) he did wound those who weren't, by shooting them in the leg or foot. He also reportedly said that he would "be joining you soon" before he committed suicide, which would suggest he believed in some kind of afterlife. Coupled with the fact that he only wounded those who did not believe in an afterlife, it would seem to me that he killed them not out of hatred but because he thought 'if I kill these people they'll go to heaven with me, and so I won't kill the non believers, that would be cruel, I'll injure them though so that the level of bloodshed is as high as possible'.

Why do I think he'd want to spill as much blood as possible? Well he is also quoted as writing online in reference to Vestor L Flanagan, the news reporter who shot his two colleagues and posted the video online.

"On an interesting note, I have noticed that so many people like him are all alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are. A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone. His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems the more people you kill, the more you're in the limelight."

Looking at his online presence and his general demeanour it's safe enough to assume that he was probably a bit of a loner and probably didn't have many friends. He was probably starved of attention and he had discovered a quick and easy way of going down in history. this phenomenon, when someone acquires fame through destructive means, is known as herostratic fame.

To put the final nail in the coffin, he revered a Catholic terrorist group called the I.R.A (Irish Republican Brotherhood). the members of which group were, and still are to some extent, involved in a religious guerrilla war between catholics and protestants in Northern Ireland.

If anything it sounds as if this man used religion as a convenient way to justify killing. Any way you slice it, it certainly isn't as cut and dry as the Charlie Hebdo killings, which were undoubtedly motivated by religious doctrine.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11906041/Chris-Harper-Mercer-Everything-we-know-about-the-Oregon-school-gunman-on-Saturday.html

I refreshed my memory on the details of this case using this article.

Hitler was a Christian. It is not disputed at all.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP_iNCGH9kY

It is mostly a satirical video, yet they make some valid and documented points. Sources are in the description. This is the most elegant source I can offer without having to spend time looking over all the historical essays I have read in the past years.

If you find this video trite or simply wish not to engage in a discussion without my providing higher-tier sources, I'll go over aforementioned texts and report back to you.

Enjoy the video and have a nice day.

No problem.

I think an important conclusion to the argument is: whatever you believe in, learn what a good person is and then be that person.

Have a good day.

(2/2)

>But more commonly, extremist christians (or insert whatever religion here) are fine with and routinely lobby for laws that impose their religious beliefs on others. You don't see atheists doing that. The laws that atheists lobby for are to KEEP theists from doing that.

And why wouldn't they be?
In their eyes they are doing their communities a favor by keeping their religious morals up.
It is after all a free country so they are allowed to do that.
Are they right in doing so?
No, not at all.
As a matter of fact due to the sensitivities of many religious people, scientific achievements have been hindered, but who is to pay the price to those faults? The same religious people that passed those laws for they will be remembered as those who hindered scientific progress.
Like I said, I don't really care for either or. It's all bants to me.

Sources:
Alan Bullock; Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives
Ian Kershaw; Hitler a Biography
Laurence Rees; The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler
Alan Bullock; Hitler: a Study in Tyranny
The Party of Unbelief
The Religious Policy of The Bolshevik Party
Protest for Religious Rights in the USSR: Characteristics and Consequences
David Kowalewski
David Silbey. The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China.
books.google.com/books?id=iWxKQejMtlMC&dq=Preston+Boxer&source=gbs_navlinks_s&hl=en__
www.nydailynews.com/news/national/christopher-harper-mercer-planned-kill-witness-article-1.2384171
www.thearda.com/internationalData/countries/Country_123_2.asp